


with you, and by the sea

by Anonymous



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Angst, Death Wish, F/M, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Vampire AU, new tags as I go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26217709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Six months later, the clone fails, and Artemis wakes up.
Relationships: Artemis Fowl II/Holly Short, Foaly & Holly Short
Comments: 32
Kudos: 47
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You know how sometimes Artemis is described as like vampiric?????? ..........yeah.
> 
> ⚠️ DISCLAIMER: I don't really have a full story in mind for this, just a lot of insistent bunnies, so I suspect it'll be like. Vignettes? I also love slowburn so....be warned ⚠️

Attending Commander Root’s recycling ceremony from a plush, stiff executive lounge had been one of the worst moments of her life, but Holly suspected it would pale in comparison to this: watching Artemis’s funeral via Foaly’s satellites, which could get close enough to timestamp the exact moment Artemis’s mother’s eyes began to haze with tears.

In the safety of her dark apartment, Holly zoomed out, to the approximate distance she guessed she’d keep if she had trusted herself to request a visitation. Shielding wasn’t especially well-known for its ability to disguise someone who was bawling uncontrollably in mid-air.

But. Faced with the high-definition feed of Artemis’s casket being lowered into the earth, Holly found herself mostly, curiously, numb. She adjusted the handheld monitor Foaly had given her, propped it up on a single gold bar she had decided not to stash at the bank, curled herself into the corner of her couch, waited for the emotions to wash over her — and felt only as calm and still as winter. Echoing through the chill was one thought.

_He’s not gone._

A belief as delicate as a snowflake. She shouldn’t have feared going to the funeral because she could barely even breathe for fear of disturbing whatever mysterious, stubborn force in her mind allowed this thought to exist with such certainty.

_He’s not gone._

Not even when the Fowls and Butlers scattered dirt and lilies over the coffin.

_He’s not gone._

Not even when she reached unconsciously for her communicator for the thousandth time to get help working out some problem spiraling in her head, and heard only static.

 _He’s not gone_.

Not even when orange roses began to bloom lusciously where Artemis had dropped like a dried leaf, with a soft scent and thorns that had a certain twisted familiarity, even when — especially when — her magic sparked to knit up the scratches they gave her when she held them.

_He’s not gone._

Not even when Foaly called her, voice quiet, to confess that the chrysalis had, for the tenth time, disgorged a mass of curdled flesh onto his laboratory floor.

_He’s not gone._

And not even when, one day, Foaly didn’t update her as usual, and returned her slew of questioning messages with a single “ _Come by the lab.”_ When she raced over, heart in her throat, he set his hands on her shoulders, firmly, as if to steady her.

“I don’t think it’s going to work, Holly.”

“What do you mean?” She said it in a laugh, like he was joking, and not staring at her solemnly and tightening his grip to prevent her from fleeing.

“I mean that it was a long shot,” Foaly said carefully. “And that...I think...it’s not going to work.”

“Well,” Holly said, “that’s just what you think,” and Foaly opened his mouth to argue, and then blinked, and said, “Well, yes, exactly.”

“But it has to work,” Holly protested. “This is...this is Artemis’s plan. His plans never fail. They — _don’t_. I mean, we’re talking about a human who figured out how to survive a bio-bomb. If Artemis can survive _that_ , then — then some kind of ridiculous little spell like is just — I mean, it’s just —“

She was flailing. She was coming up for air for the first time in six months of crushing, quiet suppression. She was breathing, a little too quickly. Foaly’s fingernails were starting to dig into her shoulders.

“You’re right. Artemis’s plans are usually foolproof. And,” Foaly continued slowly, “I think that...since he wasn’t...extremely comprehensive about this particular plan....that maybe this was not so much a plan as much as it was a...a last-ditch hope.”

Holly was silent. After a minute or so of this, Foaly swallowed. He lowered his hands, which jarred Holly from her daze.

“So that’s it?” Her voice was raising. “You’re just going to give up on him?”

“It’s not that I’m giving up on him.” Foaly looked away. “But…I can’t do much more. Clones like this need fresh genetic material, and I don’t have any left.”

It took a while for Holly to collect enough air for her meager next words. “You...don’t...?”

“There was only so much, Holly.”

No. This couldn’t be happening. A fierce cold gripped her. “Is it — because I didn’t preserve it properly? Because I didn’t understand what he meant sooner?”

“What? No, why would — Holly, _none_ of this is your fault,” Foaly said, to which Holly blurted, “Even if this isn’t, all of the rest of it _is_ ,” and Foaly stared at her in astonishment, and then grabbed her again.

“What are you _saying_? Is that what you really think?” And at her silence: “ _None of this_ is your fault!”

But she wasn’t listening. Instead, she was jabbing him, and it only took a couple good prods to make Foaly cough and loosen up enough for her to she could flung herself away from him, and out, and out.

“Holly!” Foaly called in her communicator, and she opened her mouth to shush him, but the only thing that escaped her was a strangled noise, a small but obvious sound that she’d been smothering inside her chest for half a year, and which came out now accompanied by a sudden blur of vision, and salt that bit the corner of her mouth. There was a pause.

“H-Holly —”

She cut the communicator off.

~<>~

 _He’s not gone_.

He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be.

She couldn’t breathe. She needed space.

Post-Opalacalypse infrastructure still left something to be desired. There was no shortage of little escape holes fairies could use to make it topside, and Holly reached the surface without much trouble, and found herself collapsed on the grass. Her overheated wings steamed in the night chill.

 _Deep breaths_ , she urged herself, _air will calm you down,_ but no matter how much she gasped, she couldn’t quite seem to get any.

_He’s not gone._

It couldn’t be that she — that she hadn’t even attended his funeral. It couldn’t be that the last time they had exchanged words she had tried to sedate him, and ended up unable to say a single word while he walked away. It couldn’t be that the last time they were face to face, his eye — _her_ eye, in his human body, like a foreign poison — met hers for an instant, and then started — inexorably, horribly— _to ignite_ —

She’d managed to avoid her...thoughts for so long. With requests for work, and once the work was gone with requests to test whatever Foaly was working on, and once the experiments were gone simply with her own raw, gossamer denial: _He’s not gone_.

But now…but now…

Now the memories that swarmed her sparse hours of restless sleep were catching up to her, as clear and cutting as the day they had been formed.

The agony of her unwilling limbs as Artemis kissed her forehead and continued on alone to his death.

Her eye in Artemis, like a hook, trapping his soul and letting the rune yank it out of his body like a fish.

Artemis, once the greatest threat to fairy kind, a genius the likes of which both worlds had never known, crumpling like wet paper.

If he was gone, then it was her fault. For daring to call herself his friend, and knowing him so little. For letting him face what he faced without her, and contributing only the final knife in his back.

_But he’s not gone._

Because he couldn’t… _she_ couldn’t…

Another memory, flaying: _I couldn’t do without you_.

Her wings were flickering again; they heaved her body up. She knew for a fact most of the robust (and creepy) tracking technology was still fizzled, so the only reason her wings would be taking her back to the Fowl Estate was because some desperate, unconscious twitch of her muscles demanded it, the comfort of a soft scent and the prickle of thorns. And for a moment it seemed like a trick of the weak moonlight or her tear-blurred vision that she couldn’t spot the orange gush of color anywhere in the patchwork of farms and gardens — but she circled, and circled, and when she finally realized what had happened, her heart dropped faster than her body. When her legs met the earth, they could barely hold her weight.

The roses — lush, vibrant, numerous and heavy with petals as soft as down and just as luminous — were dead.

Every single one, desiccated and hard as coal. Speechless, Holly reached out to touch one, and the headless stem of it crumbled on contact. Her hand darted back to her communicator, and found that her hand was shaking too much to turn it on, and that it didn’t matter anyway because the question in her mouth was, _“What’s going on, Artemis?_ ”

Surely he would have come across something in his outrageous breadth of research that would explain this, and maybe it would even soothe the sirens and flashing red lights in her head. The part of her attuned to nature and its magic was spinning like a weathervane in a storm. Something was not right.

If she told Foaly, he would probably make her come back. But. Holly’s eyes lifted from the blackened spiral before her. She’d faced trolls before and she wasn’t about to back down now, even if her screeching senses were pointing her... _that_ way. Her wings flickered again, and this time she she shielded properly as she advanced to the place she had only visited from behind a monitor.

The too-quiet rows of weathered headstones rose to either side like teeth, each engraved with a different Fowl. At the edge of the cemetery was a grave whose polish hadn’t yet been roughened by the relentless passage of time.

She’d avoided coming here even when she knew no one was visiting, not wanting to see _Artemis Fowl II_ carved into impermeable stone. Now that she was here, grief was the last thing on her mind; the thickening grease of twisted magic congealed in the air made her nauseous, and afraid. As she grew closer, moonlight reflected off shards of broken flower vases, with the flowers themselves strewn and pulped. Black petals were churned into the foul-smelling dirt. There was a basket that looked like it once held an offering of small vegetables, and it was crushed, and stained reddish-brown.

She’d never encountered something like this. Magic had always been natural, pure — she had never know that it could feel like…this. Like nails on a chalkboard. Like the darkness that flooded her sight when she stood too suddenly. Like trying to swallow something too big for her throat, which also happened to be bloody, gory flesh.

All magical sensations. When she alighted, her feet sank, into earth that was soft, freshly-turned. Her stomach lurched. Her headlight was easy enough to turn on even with quivering hands, and the beam showed her dirt furrowed with someone’s messy attempts to mound it back in place.

The _bad magic_ was a miasma now, a sticky fog that she resented breathing even as she paused to inhale and steady her gut, her fingers. She scrolled through her headset’s different modes, until finally she reached one that could parse what she was looking at: a column, underground, six feet deep, of loosened dirt. And at the bottom of it, a coffin, with a hole lined with splintered wood. And beyond that hole —

 _He’s_ …

Gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really sure yet how far I'll go in writing out these accumulated headcanons that have been stewing for a while...but consider a comment if you liked it!


	2. Chapter 2

_I’m not gone_.

It started as a suspicion, an irritating grain crammed into his shoveled-open mind, which quickly became turned over and over and over again. His genius brain was at work, and putting it all together, far more quickly than he cared for it to.

He had never enjoyed a very robust connection to his body, but he found that he was hyper aware of it and its various perceptions now, despite the fact there wasn’t much to be aware of. It was dark here, and narrow. And there was a sickly sweet smell, as of wilting flowers.

 _A coffin_ , his brain supplied. _Because they think you died._

 _And_ , his brain continued, before he could protest, _you did die._

Did he.

_Yes. You did._

His mind offered the memories it had so helpfully filed: Holly, and Butler, staring at him in horror. And the hard jerk he’d felt, like something had hooked onto his sternum. How he’d choked when it felt like there was something being dragged up out his throat. There was a moment he felt his heart beat as if through molasses, and then another moment where he didn’t feel his heart at all, and after that, a moment that he didn’t...feel.

And now this. A plush confinement.

He shouldn’t be able to breathe.

_Maybe it hasn’t been that long._

No — the flowers. He couldn’t move his arms to hold them but he could smell them, dead. No one placed dead flowers in a grave.

The facts continued to assemble like this: slow, inevitable. A march comforting only for its familiarity. He was used to this, observing and filing. He had all arms and legs, and each had their respective number of fingers and toes. He could blink (for what it was worth). Artemis held his breath and found he could do so indefinitely. The stillness was deafening and he realized that it was because it wasn’t interrupted by even a heartbeat. In fact, he felt mostly nothing, except a gentle throb in the pit of his stomach that grew more urgent the more he laid here and thought about it. Steadily, his thoughts turned from _What happened to me_ to...to a need to get out.

He needed out. He needed out.

He was able to breathe before; now, suddenly, he was aware of the walls only centimeters from either side of him, and could not. His belly was sending up pangs now, like he was being stabbed from the inside out.

_You need to get out!_

_~ <>~_

Easier said than done, even for a genius. In the end there was no elegant solution. He struggled physically for a period of time that he couldn’t find any way to measure and so it felt like hours, days, months. His shoulders and knees were sore from thrashing against the coffin walls, but he didn’t weaken; in fact, as the pain in his stomach increased, so did his gall. In the darkness his body managed some kind of desperate contortion that allowed him to claw and bite through the coffin’s satin interior, and then to begin chiseling at the wood. He was single-minded, and his distress flooded out the other details his brain was ferreting away discreetly — that his fingers, ragged with desperation, weren’t bleeding — that the dirt that poured into his mouth as he finally broke the coffin open tasted like nothing.

Hours, days, months. He tried calling out for help, but wasn’t answered. He could barely usher his voice up over a whisper, and that was besides the dirt that kept spilling into his throat and his clothes and his fingernails and his hair and the coffin and everything, everything.

Hours, days, months. The coffin with its pocket of air was luxury compared to this, but all his writhing had destroyed it already, and though in retrospect he would like to imagine there was some kind of strategy in his escape, in the end it was achieved through nothing but sustained animal panic. Widening the splintering hole in the coffin until his right hand could fit through start ripping in earnest, with strength that he was dimly aware he had never really before possessed.

Hours, days, months. What he would give for even a little of Mulch’s subterranean agility, instead of this, testing shoving his body through the coffin hole again and again, failing more times than he could count, feeling his space compress as more soil was kicked into the coffin, and not feeling any of the expected pain from splitting the wood with his bare hands because the feeling in his stomach overpowered it, it had graduated now to a pure hot agony, like getting gutted by a lightning bolt. The pain was starting to lance up to his chest.

The urgency of this took from any triumph he might have felt finally managing to twist his body though the coffin hole; it drowned any relief he might have felt now having only earth and clay to shovel through. Distantly, he perceived the murky glow of moonlight, and the mild chill of the wind, and the clamoring, drumming heartbeat of something very very very very very very close, something hot with life and just within reach, something that his stomach howled for him to retrieve and which he did his best to do by thrusting his hand, finally, through the surface —

He had never enjoyed a very robust connection to his body, and it did him no favors now — he missed. His hand closed on itself, empty, jagged nails digging into his own palm, and he reeled.

_No!_

He needed this. Hours and days and months and all it took for the last length was a couple short kicks, after which he followed his nose to the shadow of a creature fleeing into the distance, and it was already far enough away that it would be impossible for him to catch, except then it turned to check him with a wildly rolling eye, and Artemis opened his mouth, and said, “ _Stop._ ”

It practically dropped in mid-leap. Its fluttering nose didn’t so much as twitch. Artemis cleared just throat. When he spoke again, his voice, even gritty as it was with dirt and disuse, was mellifluous.

“ _Come here.”_

An obedient swivel of ears and limbs. The crush of grass. A hard jerk and crack. He felt himself choke, and then swallow, and swallow. There was a moment he felt nothing but a hollow in his chest, and then another moment where his heart beat as if through molasses, and after that, a moment that he...felt it thrum and kick...like...a rabbit’s.

Hours, days, months. And now this: the full moon, as bright as a glare. The earth was churned and muddy with broken vases, shorn orange petals. The night air, somehow heavy and greasy, and colder than usual against his suit, which was...damp. And warm. And very, very stained.

This couldn’t be right.

_I should be gone._

That was the ending he’d consented to. He would sleep, taking all his sins with him to the grave; and if anyone bothered to miss him, there would be the last-ditch hope of the clone, which would accept all his memories from a comfortable distance. Everyone would have a clean version of him that hadn’t directly abducted and imprisoned an innocent sentient creature, amongst other crimes. The only version that should exist. A version he guessed Holly would be happy and proud and generally unconflicted to befriend.

He inhaled, shakily. It smelled and tasted like iron. Now that he was out, his brain was calmly re-attempting dominance over the situation. Raising a whip and marching the facts into an orderly, digestible line.

 _Artemis_ , said his brain. _You’re a vampire._

He barely heard it. There was a gentle throb in the pit of his stomach, and it was growing more urgent the more he sat there and thought about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt a little sad when the books seemed to confirm Artemis becoming a completely non-magical creature...Artemis with some magic powers (and limitations) seemed like such a fun development 👀


	3. Chapter 3

Artemis would know what to do.

Foaly would know what to do too, probably. Foaly really should be made aware of this in general.

But for some reason her hand never quite made it up to her communicator to open a bridge, and later she would think to herself, _It’s because a part of me knew._

Why else would she double-check her cameras were off before she finally bent down to examine the corpse of a poor little rabbit, dried out to a hard, flat puck?

Why else would she follow the lingering miasma through the Fowl Estate, and take no photos, but merely commit to memory the signs of other past struggles: a little smear here, a rift of fur there?

Why else would she return topside over and over again once her duties were complete, leaving her lights on at home and trusting Foaly’s relief would accept her excuse that she was finally just taking well-needed rests at home, relaxing?

A cold resolve was falling over her.

_He’s not gone._

~<>~

And if anything, the fact that he was so difficult to find proved it. No one but Artemis Fowl would be able to elude her this well. The feeling of _bad magic_ didn’t extend too far beyond the grave, and the trails she thought she found, of mysteriously twisted-up rodents, felt mostly random, and certainly didn’t lead anywhere. The single cow that she discovered had been slaughtered one night on the Fowl Estate was written off to wolves ( _and maybe_ , she thought, _it actually was wolves,_ or even just a feral pack of goblins). She searched so thoroughly that she performed the Ritual more times than she ever had, to replenish what was lost shielding over the Fowl Estate and surrounding properties. The old rose garden would have quite a lot of oaks one day.

She still had the monitor she used for Artemis’s funeral. Foaly had never asked for it back and she had never made the time to return it and she was glad for that now, because it was simple enough to figure out how to rewind and pinpoint the exact moment some weeks ago that the flower vases shattered. She saw the rabbit too, nibbling on vegetables someone had put in a basket on his grave — and then, for no reason she could discern, fleeing. Then it stopped, and tottered back — and then was simply balled up, deflated, and cast aside.

Her hair was standing on end. No matter how many angles or enhancements she tried, she couldn’t see a culprit. Just the dirt shifting, on its own. And then, there — footprints — faint — quickly lost amidst the tall grass.

~<>~

 _> Holly_, Foaly messaged. _Are you alright? It’s been a while._

> _i’m ok_ , Holly responded absently. _just busy._

_> Busy? I thought you said you’ve been resting?_

_> busy resting._

A pause.

_> Your camera’s been off._

Because she had been, and was presently, flying left and right all over Ireland. Holly grimaced.

_> are you saying i should leave it on at home while i’m sleeping? what would caballine think? or is this her idea?_

_> Obviously not what I’m saying. Anyway, where are you now?_

He was suspicious. Holly waited, and then sent over an image of the looming structure that was Butler’s apartment complex.

 _> we’ve been talking, _Holly explained, and she could practically see Foaly cringe over his keyboard.

_> He’s not angry with me...is he?_

Holly landed, hastily. This needed her full attention.

_> Of course he’s not angry._

She was jabbing each letter.

> _It’s NOT your fault._

Foaly responded too quickly.

_> But maybe you’re right_

_> That I’m giving up on Artemis_

_> Okay the truth is this morning I was checking on the fairy roses just to see them again and it turns out they’re ALL DEAD. Every single one_

_> And I checked and it happened right around the time that the last clone bit it_

_> Holly, I got goosebumps. Do you think it’s a sign? It just seems like some kind of bad omen_

_> like he KNEW I was giving up_

He continued typing then, for a while, which was not good, because Foaly was a fast typer and it meant he was sending over a novel. Holly cut in.

_> IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT_

_> You didn’t give up on him and I’m sorry I said that earlier. You said it yourself. It was just a last-ditch hope_

_> Butler and I just have to...move on_

_> And it will take a while, but we’ll manage it_

_> OK???_

Silence. A silence long enough that Holly almost began to type again, could already feel her fingers starting to type, _Actually, Foaly, I think —_

 _> Okay_, Foaly sent finally. _Yeah. Thanks. Send my regards._

He retreated. Holly dismissed the chat, heavy with guilt. The truth was that she had already visited Butler a while ago, and it had taken less than a second to confirm Artemis wasn’t hiding out with him. The big old Mud Man had been gaunt. Caring for an entire apartment complex seemed insufficient to shake some memory that haunted him, and Holly could tell even when speaking with him — “ _So you haven’t noticed anything…off? Recently? Around the Estate?”_ — that he wasn’t fully checked in.

“ _No_ ,” he’d replied without much emotion. _“Nothing._ ”

She regretted sharing Foaly’s last clone news with Butler, even though — or maybe because — he had only answered with silence that didn’t break even when she cleared her throat and quietly bid him farewell.

 _Don’t worry, Butler. He’ll be back soon_.

She would find him.

~<>~

In the end, it took another month, during which Holly somehow managed to complete her tasks on an outrageously small amount of sleep. In the middle of helping subdue a frankly impressive spring of goblins making a go for the surface, she requested another monitor from Foaly, which he handwaved for her to take from a box of decommissioned but functional equipment that he kept in a lab corner beside his Nine Sticks stick. She set it up, and traded her surface fly-bys for sitting in the dark in her living room with coffee, squinting at a high-resolution screen for strangely-moving grass until she passed out, and waking up some hour or so later with a racing heart and the imprint of a gold bar on her cheek.

 _He’s not gone_.

Thinking so hard about this was headache-inducing. She traced the edges of the gold bar while she struggled to figure out what to do next. There was arguably no individual on earth that could really predict Artemis, and she suspected that was why it took her so long to realize that the infuriatingly random pattern of activity she mapped on her apartment like a conspiracy theorist was, only very slightly, not actually random. There were five regions ( _Yes…five_ , she thought uneasily, after several recounts) within which she generally noted one to three activities each night — fauna vanishing, flora moving against the wind. Then a new region would be visited, at random, and the pattern would repeat.

All she could do was wait.

 _This is how Artemis did it, isn’t it_? His first plan. Lying in wait for someone, who happened to be her, to perform the Ritual.

What would have happened, if it hadn’t been her? Would it just have been some different fairy getting pulled into his various schemes, trading off saving each other’s lives, chatting over their frequency while he tinkered on his projects and she walked to cool down from a night run? Maybe he’d still be a criminal, but at least with his family. Maybe she’d at least be enjoying her nights in comfort, rather than like this: shielding in the darkness, planting acorns, fighting sleep, and at morning returning home to her apartment and monitors to check activity and select the next night’s region. Genius she was not, but certainly she had patience, and was as stubborn as a dwarf with its nose in a hole. This would work. Just one more night.

_This will work._

Just one more night.

_This will work._

Just —

In the end, despite everything, when it finally happened, she wasn’t prepared. She had found a spot in a tree, in the crook of branches dark and shadowy enough for her to not require shielding. She was waiting, and fighting sleep, and surveying everything through the night vision mode of her headset, which had been recently upgraded by Foaly and so made it extremely clear when a cloud of broom shifted, for apparently no reason at all.

At that, Holly jerked fully awake. In response to her searching gaze, the headset tried to sharpen on the source of the movement, but only pulsed in and out of focus helplessly. Finally she slipped the whole thing off and over her forehead, and waited for her vision to adjust.

There — exactly where the headset had seen nothing.

A silhouette.

Staggering, but with deliberation — not as of someone who had never really enjoyed a robust connection to their body, but instead like someone…hunting. They paused, as if waiting, and Holly held her breath.

The part of her attuned to nature and its magic was spinning like a weathervane in a storm. Something was not right. After all this time she wanted to call out, but some instinct clenched her throat shut. After all this time the only thought in her head was, _If I don’t move, maybe I won’t be seen._

Out of instinct, she raised her shields, and it was at that exact moment that the shadow’s head snapped toward her. Their gaze fixed on her, through boughs and canopy.

That was all the warning she had. The shadow lunged, was a blur of black, reached through the leaves and caught her by the throat before she could shout, much less finish grabbing her Neutrino, which clattered out of her flailing hand and landed somewhere out of sight. They dropped to the earth, and Holly kicked and thrashed and went for every weak spot she knew: groin, nose, eyes, solar plexus. Nothing had any effect.

The hand was tightening. It was getting impossible to breathe at all, not only through the grip on her but through the heavy, sickening _bad magic_ air. Her vision blistered with white. She opened her mouth. She had air for exactly two more syllables.

_“Arty.”_

That did it. She was released; she landed hard, and coughed, and scrambled, dizzily, to her feet, raising her fists for a second round, just in case. It wasn’t necessary; the shadow had flung itself back.

“Holly,” Artemis gasped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side hc: after the events of the last book, Foaly decides to practice Nine Sticks, and loses quite a bit of monitors early in the process.
> 
> Also Butler is SO SAD. So sad that he might have moved on to caring for the Twins with Juliet but he couldn't bear even the little bit of similarity they had with Artemis, and instead just tries to make sense of why Artemis would leave him with the complex (not realizing this was Artemis's way of giving back to Butler the “home” that Butler had always served as for Artemis IDK IDK, SOMETHING LIKE THAT).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please please please forgive me this brief interlude before the Holly & Artemis reunion 🙈

For the first time Artemis could remember, he tried not to think too much.

His brain had been raised, groomed, and socialized for what he realized now was a very specific niche of existence. Criminal or not, he enjoyed access to pretty much anything he had a notion of wanting access to, which included not just the most bleeding-edge technology but whatever age-old tomes he required for his fairy research ( _and eventually_ , he thought grimly, _a fairy herself_ ). It was not a mind accustomed to lacking tailored suits, much less a bodyguard trained in Michelin-level cuisine.

That mind simply was out of place now. It rifled uselessly through his memories for alternate solutions and comforts while his body clenched with raw, demanding hunger. It panicked. It caused animals to slip free from his grasp. Finally, Artemis lacked the energy to indulge his frenetic mental flailings, and simply gave up.

It was much easier after that, even if still imperfect. Plenty of creatures still managed to escape his fledgling hand-eye coordination, but at the very least he acquired enough finesse to no longer need to continually replenish his clothing from clotheslines surrounding the Fowl Estate (with mental bookmarks to return, of course, to repay this theft as many times over as he could manage). And after only a few days spent cringing in poorly-scooped burrows from the burning sun, it was thanks to this same instinctive body that he one day scented out a strange but familiar odor that turned out to be another one of Mulch’s tunnels, which upon some exploration connected (amusingly) to what had at one time been some kind of crypt and which now was merely a half-collapsed collection of stone walls and detritus. No doubt Mulch had divested it of its furnishings and conveniently never mentioned it.

If the Fowl Estate could house an ancient rune undisturbed for hundreds of years, it certainly could also contain this very appropriate hiding spot. It was permeated with a stale air and crispy, dried-up flakes of still-glowy spit that did not disturb Artemis in the slightest when he collapsed into a flurry of them and slept thankfully solidly through to the next night. Or maybe the night after. The wave of sleep that took him over was so deep and warm that he leaped into it, hoping —

But then he was awake again.

With an ache in his stomach.

~<>~

There was plenty to do in the crypt. He shoved aside slabs of stone, and managed to discover an unused coffin, which he dragged away into the area he allocated as his new living quarters and laid with old clothing to serve as a bed. Where earth allowed some determined scratching, he gingerly widened areas so as to allow for more breathing room, and more room in general for anyone who might suffer claustrophobia. He gathered, re-moistened, and re-applied spit into roughly hewn sconces. He even borrowed a broom to brush away dirt. Maneuvering this last tool was a bewildering but not entirely complex experience. Inevitably, however, no hard labor was enough to keep him from at some point finding himself laying down and staring at the ceiling.

_Why are you alive_?

By this point he had settled into a kind of routine that his mind had only loosely given guidelines to, like bumpers in a bowling alley. Finally, as he had always longed for as a child, he rolled himself out of the lair and just wandered the grounds of the Fowl Estate, passing as he wished. Every night he took sustenance from one of five regions, a number he had questioned nervously and then decided on because it made the most _logical_ sense given the landscape and space available. He focused on small creatures, having attempted once a cow, which he found too large to make use of in a single night. (He regretted savaging the corpse afterward so that its discoverers would blame wolves, or maybe even a feral pack of goblins. Either way, its owners were appended to the lengthening list of people he owed, which was somehow getting longer in death than when he was actually alive and masterminding criminal affairs.)

A handful rabbits were all he needed, at which point he would retreat to the crypt and do his best to blank out his mind. An inevitably futile task.

_Wasn’t it that you used to take only one or two rabbits before you stopped feeling the need to hunt?_ his brain wondered. _Is it possible the number is increasing?_

He didn’t want to think about it.

There was a period of wonderful silence.

_The number is increasing,_ his brain said firmly. _You’re also increasingly distracted by the shielding fairy that keep flying overhead._

Fascinating that he could perceive shielding fairies at all now. Maybe something about a vampire being attuned to the emitted magic. Anyway, they were too fast to catch, and Artemis grimaced. He hated that catching them was something he thought about even peripherally. The rabbits would do. The rabbits would be fine. A rabbit diet could sustain him eternally, if that was what his body wanted.

_But it’s not what your body wants._

Sometimes he found that the trails he followed led to larger potential prey — not cows or rabbits — but camping tents emitting the sound of peaceful dozing — or else areas that were conspicuously near oak trees and riverbends. Sometimes it was nice just to pause and breathe in those places. The air was warm and sweet.

But he would never.

_Really?_

Never. This was where he drew the line.

_Ah, because that’s what you’re good at. Not crossing lines._

He didn’t know why there were so many fairies here anyway.

_It’s not multiple fairies, and you know it._

Did he?

_You’re dead, not stupid._

In his makeshift bed, Artemis turned to his side, pulled his knees to his chest. She probably had discovered his ruined grave by now, haphazardly covered as it was. Nothing overtly dramatic had happened yet, which led him to assume that for whatever reason, she had kept his awakening and subsequent escape secret. Additionally, there must be something preventing Foaly from pinpointing his location. Artemis had confirmed already that peering over a body of water to catch his reflection didn’t yield so much as a shadow. There was probably similar principle at work with optical devices of a more advanced nature.

_She’ll be furious with you, when she finds you._

And he wouldn’t have a good answer for when she asked why he didn’t return, only a lot of what he was sure she would consider excuses.

Like how he’d become a nightmare creature, for whom the taste of iron only left his mouth when he was filled with a desperate desire to replace it.

Or like how he couldn’t bring himself to go near Butler’s apartment at all, nor disturb the sight of both of his parents chatting and smiling and leaning over the Twins as they swung their telescope left and right outside their window.

Or like how the one time he had dared to try accessing the Manor, just to get a glimpse of his brothers and maybe pick up an old suit, he hadn’t made it even a centimeter over the balcony railing before he was overcome with nausea so strong he had to retreat to his lair, too stunned and sick to make sense of what had happened until the next night. Vampires counted as beings that needed to be invited into a residence, and Artemis Fowl the Second was no longer invited.

It was better that way anyway. For a moment, he had seen the Twins’ sleeping forms in bed. Quietly, warmly, sweetly breathing. For a moment, he couldn’t help the thought that it would be so easy to —

Artemis curled up, trying his hardest to think of nothing, and not succeeding.

~<>~

This wasn’t the ending he consented to.

_I should be gone._

Not waking up each night like a single-minded drone, breathless with hunger.

_I should be gone._

Not killing things with his bare hands, and consuming them, and lying awake the rest of the night with nothing to do but pore over his countless crimes, the things he had been unable to prevent himself from doing even when he was just human.

_I should be gone._

Not steadily getting better at dispatching rodents and even better at eluding fairy fly-bys, even as he felt his body quiver and salivate.

_I should be gone._

Not finding himself one night retreating to the lair after a half-dozen rabbits, and then needing to go out again to satisfy his stomach with a dozen more.

_I should be gone._

And not now crawling out of the lair with all his strength, limbs trembling, skin taut over the bones in his hands. His brain could provide no memory of relevant research to explain this, and so it was deducing things instead, horrifically.

_The rabbits really aren’t enough._

_A vampire is a magical creature — it needs magic to survive._

And when the Ritual didn’t work, Artemis bent over his empty reflection in the riverbend, breathing shakily.

_Myths have some root in fact. There’s probably only one way that vampires can acquire magic._

As if his past transgressions weren’t already heinous enough. Artemis closed his eyes. He wouldn’t do it. He’d rather waste away in the crypt.

_And if you die again? And this time somehow become something even worse?_

He didn’t understand the principle behind his previous transformation. Maybe it was simply that death itself had been too mild a punishment. Maybe it wasn’t even possible for him to die at all, anymore, and this was his atonement, Prometheus-like, both the chained man and the starving eagle.

_No matter the reason, this situation is controllable. No one needs to get hurt. You can control this._

But as his body’s hunger increased, his discipline weakened. Starving made him desperate and being desperate broke the reins. There was no room for thinking beyond the shriek of his hunger, the pressure of his stomach that was so sharp that he felt like he might snap. Trying to control this was like trying to hold his own breath; his instincts made him thrash out, inexorable. He needed food. Something bigger than a child’s juice box of a creature whose spine he could pinch between thumb and forefinger.

He was so hungry. He started to stagger, even though the past week of bingeing had made such a dent in the local population that finding a rabbit was becoming an actual issue. He was so hungry. He was stumbling more than he was walking; he was finding himself in places he didn’t completely remember getting to. He was so hungry. He needed something that wasn’t just the vampire equivalent of sugar water. Something...some...

And that was when a tree suddenly lit up beside him — vibrant, bright, a beacon, like the sun he hadn’t seen in over half a year, hot with life and very very very very very very close, someone that his stomach howled for him to retrieve and which he did his best to do by thrusting his hand, finally, _through_ —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also please forgive me the liberties I'm taking with vampires 🙈🙈


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for following along this far and for the kind comments! I haven't written all year and am pleasantly shocked to have gotten this far on this story, I'm happy there are people enjoying it!

He was shaking, visibly. He appeared to recognize her. His face was paler than she remembered, which, frankly, was remarkable.

“Artemis.” Was it just the fault of her sore throat, that her voice cracked in the middle of saying it? “You're alive.”

He closed his eyes. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts. His hands were fisted up. When he finally spoke, his expression was twisted.

“Not exactly.”

“...what?”

“Nevermind. Are you — alright? I...”

Holly waved him off. “It’s nothing. Barely a scratch.”

Artemis looked unconvinced, but said, “Then I’ve gotten off easy. And it’s more important that you listen to me.” He was looking at the ground. “Leave.”

In that instant, whatever awe Holly had at all her desperate hopes and desperate efforts actually coming to fruition drained out of her completely. It was replaced by an unexpected, incandescent rage.

“ _Leave_? Artemis, I — I've been searching for you. For months. _Months_! And in return you don’t even bother with a ‘Long time no see?’ What's the matter with you?”

She gave him a moment to respond, and he didn’t use it, so she continued. “This whole time we've all thought you've been dead. I've —” She bit her own words off. “Butler's missed you. He's not the same. He just goes about his business as usual, but you can tell all he can think about is you.”

“There’s a reason I haven’t returned. And I’d rather keep it to myself. Please leave,” Artemis repeated, and Holly paused. He sounded...pleading. She’d never heard him sound quite like that. Never heard him — beg like that. Holly wavered. Her voice when it came out next was softer.

“I know the reason you attacked me and the reason you’re staying away is because…something happened to you. I can sense it from here. Come back with me and — and we'll find a way to make you better. There has to be some kind of — I don't know —”

“Stop it,” Artemis interrupted. “And _listen_. If you don't leave, I —”

He inhaled deeply, as if to gather himself, but all that happened was that he swayed, heavily. Holly blinked, and then rushed forward, wings flickering, and caught him just before he hit the ground. She set him down gently, rolled him over to his back, steadied his head on her lap. He was heavy; his skin was cold.

“Artemis —”

He still wouldn't look at her. Actually, his eyes were hooded; he was fading. Whatever strength he had exhibited earlier seemed to have been his last, was maybe just an adrenaline-fueled outburst. She had finally found Artemis and the only reason why was because he could no longer flee. Holly slapped her hand against his cheek, lightly but repeatedly, keeping him up. There were things she was noticing about him, now, that he was exposed in the moonlight. Like how his hair, usually so meticulously pushed back, was overly long, and falling all over his face. And how his clothing, also once carefully tended, was worn and at odds.

“You look terrible,” she told him, with a teary laugh.

“Do I?” he mumbled. ”I wouldn’t know.”

Still fading. Holly swallowed.“Stay with me, Fowl,” she called, and finally he looked at her. And his eyes —

When she was shocked out of her dreams, it was always because of...his eyes. Their eyes. Mismatched and matching. When she watched the rune tear away his soul, when their gaze met for one last time, seeing his eyes go bright and then dark was like watching herself die. And even though he was here, and talking, and moving, his eyes were the deep black from that time. Glinting, in the moonlight, with red.

There were children’s stories about this in Haven — scary ”cautionary tales” a fairy parent might whisper with some benevolent sadism to their children on those rare nights when the lights of Haven required maintenance and flickered ominously overhead, drenching the city in pure darkness. Silly but horrifying stories, about a type of magical creature made under extraordinary circumstances, which, unlike other fairies, needed a certain kind of substance to survive.

Her eyes flooded. But she didn't throw him off, or run, or attempt a _mesmer_. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. A part of her had known this whole time.

“As usual, you Mud Men don't have it right about vampires,” Holly said. Her voice was quiet, and only a little steady. “The sparkling and all that. And no amount of rabbits is going to keep you from dying, Artemis. But I...somehow I’ll...”

He said she had fixed him before. She could do it again.

“H-heal,” she tried. She felt the magic gather and flush her fingertips with a blue glow, and — stay there.

“ _Heal_ ,” Holly said insistently, this time touching her fingers to his forehead, and this time the magic left, at her insistence — and Artemis choked. His body writhed in pain and Holly immediately stopped, and held him, until lay there, panting, like he’d been electrocuted. There was a smear of blood — _blood!_ — in the corner of his mouth, which she spotted before he wiped it away with his tongue.

“Sorry,” Holly gasped, gripping him, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and Artemis managed, weakly, “There is nothing to apologize for. I’m not in the least surprised to find this is not a condition that can simply be healed. Maybe you should try the Neutrino next.”

It sounded like a joke. But he didn’t sound smug, or even offended; he just looked at her, tiredly. It reminded her of _that time_. The same look as from then, when they were separated by an ancient light, when Holly understood that what was happening was something he had planned and desired from the beginning. But there was no shrug now, and no smile.

~<>~

How did it all happen, after that?

How _exactly_?

It was so unclear. The more she looked at him the louder she felt her blood pounding in her ears, strong and fast. Her heart was beating like a creature trying to escape. Any relief she had felt earlier was gone; now she felt only nauseous with fear. She couldn’t lose him again. She couldn’t let herself lose him again.

One of the tears hanging in her right eye escaped her, and fell onto his cheek. Then another. The fog of _bad magic_ had nothing on what felt like her heart shattering all over again. Her fingers curled, clenched on his shirt, as if that would keep him there.

And Artemis whispered. Just a single thing.

“ _Holly.”_

He’d said it earlier, her name, but not like this. Softly. Gazing at her. She decided, right then. She unhooked one hand from his shirt and posed her wrist directly over his face.

His body jerked — from shock? She swallowed and moved her wrist closer, encouraging, until it brushed his pursed mouth, and when he still didn’t move she murmured, “Please, Arty,” and his eyes on her were wide, and then, blacker. And then they shut.

And his mouth opened.

~<>~

She guessed that it would hurt, and it did, but not in a way she was familiar with, getting punched by a troll or swatted out of the air or even having her body crushed and scattered by whatever the daily special happened to be. She caught a glint of sharp fangs, like a wolf, or a goblin. They sank into her skin effortlessly, with a needle-fine pain like getting pricked by rosethorns, and instinctively she might have winced, but he had shifted, he was holding her — one hand steadying her arm — his other hand with hers. Their fingers threshed. And suddenly, sparks began to fizz between her wrist and his mouth.

_What —_

Magic should never come out unless summoned. Maybe it was — instinct? A natural response? The pain of Artemis’s — contact — was starting to blur. It was becoming something else, something that reminded her of the first time she had flown in real air, in real moonlight. Heady. Her pulse echoed in her ears, louder, matching the rhythm of the quiet swallowing below. Dizzying.

There was always some deep-seated _good_ feeling that came with using magic — indulging in the release of it — something not unlike the raw simplicity of a full breath of cool air, or the first bite of a strawberry, or sunlight on her skin. She’d never been the type to hoard her magic even if she was running cool, and now, when her magic became depleted completely, she didn’t even notice. She just felt. Light.

“Holly,” Artemis called suddenly.

Actually, maybe it wasn’t sudden. His voice was hard with urgency. Like maybe he had been calling for a while. Distantly, she felt herself being shaken.

“ _Holly_ — I’m so sorry, I — I didn’t — I tried to —“

“I’m alright,” Holly tried to say. Her mouth didn’t quite move properly to manage it. Oh, she felt tired. Exhausted to the marrow. Belatedly, she realized they had switched. Artemis was holding her, rather than the other way around. He was looking down at her, his eyes wide. And mismatched. One blue, one hazel.

_I did it._

She fixed him. Her eyes stung. She cried, in earnest, for a couple seconds.

Then, for the first time in months, she let herself rest.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been pretty good about updating every couple days thus far, but chapters after this one are a little TBD because I need to actually think about...what to write next 😅 That being said, please enjoy this extra long chapter!
> 
> Sidenote: this might be a good time to mention that this whole AU might…MIGHT…have come about purely because I wanted to think of a way Artemis could keep his eyes, lmao.

_I can’t believe you._

He felt his blood pounding in his ears, strong and fast. There was a moment he felt nothing but a hollow in his chest, and then another moment where his heart beat as if through molasses, and after that, a moment that he...felt it beat, powerfully, like a creature trying to escape.

At that point, usually, he could calm himself with a good meditative inhale. But now, he only found his pulse picking up. Noise flooded him.

_You did it._

_You actually did it._

The one thing he said he’d never do. The one person he hadn’t wanted to hurt again.

“Holly,” Artemis gasped. And again, “ _Holly_ —”

Her body was so light. Had she always been this light? Or did she only seem so because of his vampiric strength? Her wrist oozed blood in two thin lines and with great deliberation he wiped them away with his hand instead of his salivating mouth. After that, the wound seemed clean and sealed. At least there was that.

But the bitemark itself was...stark.

 _Good_ , he thought. And then he thought, _What?_

Nevermind. No matter. Not important. Holly was unconscious. Alive — breathing, and heart beating — but incredibly still, and cold. His fingers curled, clenched on her uniform.

_I can’t believe you actually did it._

It only took a moment more of calling for her to stir, and even then, his stammering guilt overwhelmed his relief. He wasn’t even sure if she really heard him. She just looked at him and then fell asleep again, head to his chest. Breathing gently. Still full of bright, electric blood.

...what?

_So much for lines you won’t cross._

Fairy blood was different after all. The muddy weakness he possessed not ten minutes earlier was now barely a bad memory. Impulse cravings aside, his stomach was placid. There was a sort of raw simplicity in what he felt now — like —a full breath of cool air, or the first bite of a strawberry, or sunlight on his skin, which he hadn’t in a while experienced as anything other excruciating, but which he remembered once felt like a pleasant flush all over his body. For the first time since waking up, he felt...well. Alive. Good.

_So you drained the blood and magic from your best friend whom you’ve neglected to tell of your waking existence, and it feels great? Is that what you’re thinking?_

_Is that really what you’re thinking?_

Artemis closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the vampirism, but she was so warm. He hadn’t touched another being except to murder and suck it dry in...hours, days, months.

_Well, don’t start now._

The sky was beginning to color, and the hairs on his nape prickled. He did not want a repeat of the only time he had let himself get caught fully by sunrise. And he certainly wasn’t going to leave Holly here for the wolves and goblins.

_The abundant wolves and goblins of the Fowl Estate. Creatures that might attack and eat her. You wouldn’t want that leave her alone with one of those, right?_

Artemis hesitated. Maybe she was better off here. Maybe his desire to carry her off was...not innocuous.

Or was it?

...or wasn’t it.

The sky was tinging, a warning vermilion. He needed to decide.

 _You left her once already, didn’t you_?

But not like this.

_Right. Just so paralyzed she couldn’t even beg you to stop from leaving her behind._

He had to, that time.

_Don’t leave her. Not like this._

He gritted his teeth, resisted the urge to cram his hands against his ears like a child. He tried to think, clearly.

Holly was the first name on his debtor’s list, and though he doubted he would ever really pay her back for anything, he didn’t want to add anything after _fed on her until she passed out_. Presently, he felt full. It was unlikely he’d soon have a desire to bite her again. He owed her.

Artemis doubted he had ever possessed the strength to carry Holly before, but he found the maneuver simple to execute now, and wished fervently it was due to some renewed strength rather than some weakness or…depletion on her part. He took a breath. Hopefully the crypt was large enough that it wouldn’t trigger her claustrophobia.

~<>~

The journey and arrival was easier than anticipated, even with Holly still leaden when he kneeled to begin laying her against a wall. In her sleep, she shifted; her face tipped against him. He had only ever seen Holly unconscious from being zapped or knocked out or chemically tranquilized. There was something about her present expression that seemed peaceful now. Then again, maybe he was merely imagining it. He brushed her hair from her face, and saw that her eyes were dark underneath.

 _Holly_.

The blood she gave him made his chest swell, painfully.

_Brave and stubborn and too-kind Holly._

She’d searched so hard for him.

_Only for you to run from her. And then fail to not bite her anyway._

Maybe...he swallowed, carefully. Maybe it was fine that he bit her. Just this once. It was true he had attacked her, but he’d successfully maintained control. In the end, didn’t she ask him to bite her? Voluntarily?

 _Oh? Is “voluntary” the word we use now for people who have been_ mesmerized _?_

He almost dropped her.

_Mesmer?_

Impossible. He reached and tore through his filed memories of less than an hour prior, and to his mortification found them vague. Blurry with blue sparks and the feeling of Holly’s skin in his —

His whole body jerked, enough so that he did, in fact, drop her. The care he’d taken in not jostling her at all while bringing her here went to waste as she landed, hard, and hissed. She’d woken up.

A normal person might spend a moment or two indulging in confusion, in self-soothing. He’d just removed a significant volume of blood from her body and doubted she had slept all night. But Holly simply, and quickly, oriented herself. She scanned her body, and then her surroundings, and then, finally, him. Even exhausted and drained of magic, she was beaming.

“I can’t believe you actually have a crypt,” she said. She didn’t seem disturbed by the close walls. Artemis relaxed, marginally.

“I have a past Mulch’s thieving to thank for it,” Artemis said. He found himself continuing on: “I apologize for dropping you. The...strength is new to me.”

Holly was rubbing her thigh. “Bet you wish you had taken Butler up on all the training now.”

“Not as much as you wish I did.”

She laughed, lightly. “A lot of things I wish you did, really.”

_Like not lie to her, over and over and over._

Artemis sat back, silent, on a small outcropping of fallen wall he had chiseled roughly into a chair. Over half a year, and they were speaking as if nothing had changed, and really nothing _had_ changed: not even a minute and he had already buried his honesty. He suddenly did not trust himself to open his mouth, much less look at her. Holly noticed immediately and started to stand up with concern, saying, “Hey, Ar —”

And then she cringed, and stopped. She leaned against the wall, face pinched, a fist clenched. Artemis suppressed the urge to steady her. He inched, slightly, further away, and offered only, “Anemia can make you light-headed.”

At that, Holly removed the hand she had been screwing into her furrowed brows. She looked at her bitten wrist, and then around, and then at him. She seemed to be searching for words.

“I’m sorry, Holly,” he said, before she could find anything. “For...”

He couldn’t even say it. She rubbed the bitemark, shrugged. “It’s nothing. Just a little blood. I’ll make more. That’s how it works, right?”

Artemis frowned. “Holly. You passed out.”

“Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve passed out from something. It was very nostalgic. You’d be surprised how boring the world has been without you. I missed our little adventures.”

Artemis rubbed his chest absently. Strange to feel his heart beating like this. He definitely perceived it more now, compared to how it felt after ingesting rabbit blood. Still, it had been so long that he didn’t know how to interpret its currently quickening pace. Apprehension?

“So the clone didn’t work.”

“No...it didn’t. Foaly’s nephew’s been getting a _lot_ of pocket money for his next unicorn convention, though. It kept getting messy.”

“It should have worked,” Artemis muttered.

“Maybe if you’d left an actual sample,” Holly said. “And not just a kiss.”

He had blood enough to feel his face color, slightly. “I was improvising.”

“You couldn’t improvise a jar of hair?”

At that, his mouth pulled helplessly into a smile. _Oh,_ he heard himself think. _I missed her._

More than that, probably, he missed just having anyone around. Before, even at his loneliest he had still had Butler. He’d never considered himself the kind particularly in need of socialization, but his still-fast heart was sort of squishing now, uncomfortably. Had it moved around like this, before? Like some kind of separately alive thing in an already troublesome body? He rubbed his chest again, and Holly tried to stand again, and this time she succeeded.

“Are you...alright? Is something the matter? If you didn’t get enough — enough earlier, I could —”

“No,” he said without thinking, looking at her, “sit,” and soon as she did, guilt punctured his swelling heart. Did he use _mesmer_? Or not? He was sure he didn’t but —

He set his head in his hands, to cover his eyes, for what was next. The pounding in his chest was disturbing his lungs, so much so that he felt he could hardly muster the air for what he needed to say.

“I’m sorry, Holly. I won’t do it again.”

“Won’t do what?” Holly asked wryly. “Die? Or pretend you’re dead while you’re actually completely fine and alive and living in an actual crypt? Maybe you meant you won’t singlehandedly eradicate the rabbits of the Fowl Estate? You’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

“I’m not completely fine,” Artemis said. “Nor completely alive, which you seem to be aware of. But what I meant is that I won’t bite you again.”

“I made you do that,” Holly said, “not you,” and she seemed so certain of it that the right thing to do would have been to correct her immediately, which meant of course that he didn’t. If Holly knew that on top of everything else, he had — made her agree to be used like —

_What was it you said earlier? A juice box?_

Artemis steeled himself. “I’m also sorry because I know it will hurt you to know I’m not going with you.”

Holly had enough strength now to march toward him. “And why not?”

“You know why.”

“I don’t, actually. Artemis, everyone would be so happy to see you. They’ve missed you.”

“I’m sure they did, for some period of time. But my family seems well enough without me. Better, even.”

“And Butler?”

“He’s already spent too much of his life waiting on me.” Something he’d been thinking for years now, but which he only now put into words.

“And Foaly? Mulch? Me?” Holly’s voice was raising. “Do you know how long I spent topside searching for you?”

“Almost every night,” Artemis answered. “Until a certain point where I believe your energy no longer kept up with your obstinacy and you traded your surveying for more deliberate stakeouts.”

“You _knew_ I was searching,” Holly said, startled and furious. “Why am I even surprised? Of course you knew. But why did you avoid me? If it’s just about — your condition — it’s fine. It’s not your fault.” She took a breath; when she spoke next, her voice was softened. “Everyone will understand.“

She was close enough that she tried to rest a hand on his shoulder, which he shrugged off. He straightened finally to look at her.

“ _Will_ they understand?” he asked. “Then why didn’t you tell Foaly you were searching for me?”

“W-well…” When Artemis snorted pointedly, she grimaced. “It wasn’t so much about — about my guess that you became a vampire, so much as it was that I didn’t want anyone knowing I was topside all the time. And searching for you. Even you have to admit that would have led to too many forms to fill out.”

“So to be clear,” Artemis said. “Your silence was fully about the paperwork required for you to venture topside, and not at all about the hypothetical paperwork involved with revealing my existence as a being who now preys upon fairies as a matter of biology rather than material gain. That’s what you’re saying.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Holly said. “To be honest, I just wanted to take it one step at a time. Find you first, figure out the rest later. I didn’t have a genius plan, alright? That stuff is you. But, since it’s clear you don’t really have a plan anyway, I suggest we go with mine, which is to go home. Or at least talk about why you won’t go home. I’m sure by now you’ve gathered plenty of excuses I’ll enjoy telling you are very un-genius-like of you to have.”

 _Tell her_.

_Holly will help._

_Tell her_.

The number of ridiculous impulses he was having to bother with alongside the hungry vampire ones were becoming tiresome. It was stupid and selfish to imagine burdening her with attempting to understand anything about what was happening with him. Illogical sentiment unfit for bothering even a licensed psychologist.

“Can’t you give me even a chance of understanding?” Holly asked, to his surprise. Maybe something had shown through on his face. Or maybe he’d forgotten how well she knew him.

“Even if you think I won’t get it,” she continued, “maybe I will. You’ll never know unless you tell me. But, Artemis, it’s clear there’s something the matter with you, other than the vampire thing. Maybe — some other kind of complex —”

“No. There’s no complex,” Artemis said heavily.

This was just his life now. He had stolen art from Swiss banks and made short work of Foaly’s servers but piecing together his own voice echoing in his head was…exhausting.

Still, for her, he searched, as he had since the moment he woke up. Some word to describe the force of will it took to feed his endless hunger, or to fight his own voice debating and rehashing his every move and memory. The chained man and the starving eagle both. The relentlessness of knowing he would need to wrestle and suppress and endure this today, and tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after…every hour. Every day. Every month.

He wished that N°1 was here, to de-emulsify and whisk them all together again into a cosmic slurry. He wouldn’t need words, then. He could just exist, and she would understand the sheer burden of it.

“Look at me, Artemis,” Holly told him. When he refused, she grabbed his face and turned it to hers. Their eyes met. Mismatched. Matching. Her hands were warm.

“I’m not leaving you again. I’m bringing you home, right now.”

He humored her. And, partially, himself. “And when I get hungry next?”

“Then — then I’ll feed you. I can do it again. I feel fine already. Look at me! I’m fine.”

She did not look fine. She looked like someone had slurped up a significant volume of fluid from her body after a sleepless night and then dropped her on stone tile. That she would believe — that she could do it _again_ —

 _But that’s not her fault_.

She had been magically convinced the first time was fine, and so naturally believed a next time would be acceptable.

“I’m _not_ leaving you,” Holly said fiercely. “Not as long as you’re still alive.”

He knew she wouldn’t leave him, as certainly as he knew she would literally drain herself over and over for his sake. And though he was warm with sustenance, he still felt his mouth water.

_It would be easy. So easy._

_Listen to her. She wants to. Why would you deny that? This can’t be_ mesmer _anymore. She wants to help._

_No more rabbits. No more stealing. Just rely on one person, for as long as your life lasts, forever._

And then he saw in his mind the long list of people he owed, lengthening, each line the same: _Holly, Holy, Holly, Holly._ The person who deserved it the least.

He couldn’t. He needed to be good. Or at least slightly better now than he had in life. A good person wouldn’t justify using their best friend as a personal blood bag. For an example of what a good person and friend would do, he needed to look no further than Holly herself. Self-sacrificing, altruistic. She cared for others infinitely.

But who would care for her?

His brain worked, quickly. There had to be some way.

And there was.

He raised his hands to either side of her face, cradling it. The gentle action surprised her so much she released him. He looked into her eyes. Mismatched. Matching.

“Holly,” he said softly. Low, with bass and alto, and honey. “I’m not alive. I’m dead.”

She stiffened.

“Artemis, don’t,” she gasped, and then, voice raising: “Stop, stop, stop, _stop_ —”

But he had all her magic, and all her strength. She kicked him; her fingers fluttered against his, ineffectual. All the thrashing of a moth in a web. He didn’t even need to tighten his grip.

“Listen,” Artemis repeated. “I’m dead.”

“No. _No_.” Resisting. “You’re just — just saying that. It’s a trick. You aren’t gone. You’re not. You can’t be.”

“I am,” Artemis pressed. Holly’s eyes were starting to go hazy. And glisten.

“No…you…can’t be dead. You’re here. With me.”

“Regrettably, it’s just a dream.”

“But you’re warm,” Holly protested. “When I dream of you you’re always cold. And your eyes are dark. _That’s_ when you’re dead. Not…not…”

His heart moved again. A sinking sensation, this time.

“I’m sorry, Holly,” he said quietly. “But you’ll be better soon. You deserve to move on.”

“ _How_?” she cried. “How am I supposed to move on? I can’t do without you, Arty. I missed you so much. I didn’t give up. I searched for so long. And I…I found…”

“…that I was dead,” Artemis finished. Holly shook.

“No…I found…you. And you needed me.”

Holly’s mind was so strong. Wasn’t it that _mesmerizing_ someone was supposed to make them happy? Her tears were overflowing now. He wiped one away with his thumb, and another.

_Look at her. She’s fighting you. Look at her! Don’t do this!_

_You don’t even want to do it yourself!_

Being a good person had not historically aligned with things he wanted. He layered his voice, until he felt the magic burn in the back of his throat.

“All dreams,” he told her. “I don’t need you. A dead person doesn’t need anyone. If I need anything, it’s for you to take care of yourself. Go back home. You can do it even without magic, can’t you? Safely?”

After a moment she nodded, once. Trembling.

“It should be fairly light out now,” Artemis said. “So, go, carefully. Don’t tell anyone about how you imagined me here. And visit a doctor. And rest. You’ll feel better.”

“I’ll feel better,” Holly mumbled. “Really? Do you promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

“…alright.”

He let her go. She drooped, a little, but kept her footing. She wiped her eyes.

“One last thing,” Artemis said, remembering. “Give me your right hand.”

She held it out obediently. Artemis took it, and turned it over. He rested his fingertips on the bitemark, concentrating.

“Heal,” he murmured. Purple sparks sizzled over her wrist, and when they faded, the marks remained there, completely. He grimaced. Perhaps her magic’s journey into his body had transformed it. Even so, the endeavor left his arm feeling numb, so he wasn’t confident about having a second go.

“When you see these in the future,” Artemis said, “you’ll think they’re…bug bites. Alright?”

Holly looked down at her wrist, eyes hooded. “Alright.”

“Alright.” He took a breath. “That’s it, then. Go. Quickly.”

Before he lost his nerve. Before he changed his mind.

“And you’re staying here?” Holly asked. “You’re not coming with me?”

_It’s not too late. Go. Go._

He was still holding her hand. After a moment, he released it.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I’m staying.”

“Then this time it’s my turn,” Holly murmured. Before he could parse what she meant, she leaned toward him and kissed his forehead.

“Goodbye, Arty,” she whispered.

His mouth opened. But before he could say anything, she was turning away; and then, he was alone.


End file.
